


A Woman Leads

by yourlibrarian



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV), Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: F/M, Meta, Nonfiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-17
Updated: 2020-11-17
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:20:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27606871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yourlibrarian/pseuds/yourlibrarian
Summary: A series of posts I've been reading after finishing a rewatch of the final Skywalker trilogy led me to think about the differences in enemies to lovers storylines when it's a het pairing. For example, although I've never found Kylo Ren of much interest, I do like Rey, and it wasn't difficult at all to see why the Reylo pairing is big in the fandom. There is no way it wouldn't have been shipped hard had Rey been a man, probably because there would be nothing unusual about it.
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Spike/Buffy Summers
Comments: 8
Kudos: 7
Collections: March Meta Matters Challenge





	A Woman Leads

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted November 3, 2020

A series of posts I've been reading after finishing a rewatch of the final Skywalker trilogy (only my second viewing of Rise of Skywalker) led me to think about the differences in enemies to lovers storylines when it's a het pairing. For example, although I've never found Kylo Ren of much interest, I do like Rey, and it wasn't difficult at all to see why the Reylo pairing is big in the fandom. There is no way it wouldn't have been shipped hard had Rey been a man, , probably because there would be nothing unusual about it. 

I was astounded that there was so much Kylo and Hux fic out there given that, to me, this was simply doubling down on charmless and offputting characters who had no chemistry at all. But hardly anyone besides Snoke, Hux, Phasma, and Rey have any interactions with Kylo unless we count family members (current or through flashbacks). And frankly there's nothing much there with anyone but Rey, particularly across 3 films.

True, we have some moments of Kylo torturing Poe and fighting Finn. But it's hard to create something out of that when canon is handing us a redemption storyline on a platter and the two characters have a potential soul bond to boot. (I say "potential" only because the whole dyad business is poorly explained, but it is straightforwardly discussed as a soulmate thing by some on the creative team. At the very least the two are connected, however unwillingly). 

Kylo/Rey makes even more sense because there is no strongly pushed romance in the trilogy. Sure, Rose is attached to Finn, and Finn to Rey, (and one can easily buy a Finn/Poe ship). But Finn and Rose goes nowhere in the third film, and while Finn keeps pining for her, it's Ben who gets Rey's kiss in the end – and it's not clear Rey even cares for him romantically.

**Who Else Would There Be?**

In fact, it's almost bizarre how in the mad race of the third film that several potential love interests are dangled in front of the audience only for everything to return to the status quo in the final 5 minutes. Poe is shrugged off by Zorii, Jannah looks to be gaining a mentor and a separate quest, and Ben is safely dead. (Rose is, meanwhile, ignored). 

But the big issue here to me is engagement. Finn spends a lot of time chasing after Rey and yelling her name in RoS. While he prioritizes her in all his decisions in Last Jedi, he is actually interacting with Rose. Poe is gone for much of Force Awakens, and is separated from both Finn and Rey in Last Jedi. In Rise, he at least has good banter with Finn, which is why I think Finn/Poe makes the most sense of any other pairing.

But Rey tends to have strong interactions with everyone she runs into. Part of this is because the character is very straightforward. Part of it is also because she is the central character (though at least in Last Jedi, all three of the new trio have independent storylines and thus seem more equivalent). She only really interacts with Poe though in RoS, while Finn comes off like he's constantly chasing after her because she's not really interacting much with him either -- at least not any more than with Chewbacca or Poe or even Threepio. They're all part of the team, but from her side, Finn might as well have been Rose.

The people Rey interacts with consistently both emotionally and in terms of her mission are the Skywalkers. When looked at that way, the ending of the trilogy makes a lot more sense. Han is a Skywalker by marriage, but he's ready to offer Rey a job after an hour together, and she is hurt by his death. To my mind she never really seems to bond with Luke, he's more of a mission and an end goal than a person. As has been argued elsewhere, which I really agree with, her sudden return to his island and her conversation with him in RoS seems both out of character and pointless. And, of course, she bonds with Leia right away (rather improbably) and by RoS Leia becomes the mentor Luke never was.

But it is with Kylo that she has the most consistent interaction. Undoubtedly the idea of the soul bond was a way to keep the antagonists interacting while they were in entirely different spaces, and the writers didn't want to have a confrontation happen too soon in the storyline. Their connection thus maintains Kylo and the First Order as an ever present threat.

**A Threat to Who?**

However the intimacy of mental connections, and of each attempting to convert an antagonist to one's side, inevitably becomes more intriguing than threatening. That's because Rey, despite being new to the Force and potentially younger, holds her own quite well with Kylo from their first interactions. What's more, especially on Rey's side, her natural intensity seems more urgent when she's interacting with Kylo. Part of that is simply plot-related -- he is the one giving chase, and she not only has to avoid being captured but also elude his continued effort to turn her.

But even before their final stand, when she fights him, and certainly when she heals him, she is connecting to him more directly than anyone else in the film. In comparison, she is grieving when she thinks Chewbacca has died -- but at least part of her emotional turmoil is guilt, and feeling that Kylo pushed her into it. Even at such a grim moment, it is not entirely about Chewie himself. Of course, why she heals Kylo can have many answers, but it certainly plays into the idea that she cares for him on her own terms and not simply as Leia and Han's son.

I found myself also thinking about two other factors -- the force sensitivity that Rey and Finn were unaware of at the start of FA, and the issue of redemption in het stories. Because the enemies to friends/lovers storyline is not only extremely common, but it is extremely popular in fanfiction. However because so many canon stories have male protagonists, the redemption of a villain or reconciliation of opponents can easily be written without any romantic overtone because everyone involved is male. (In fact, should there be a woman involved, a sexual threat to her is one way of showing the villain to be a villain). When a woman is a lead or a major character, if she faces off against someone, her antagonist or villain is often another woman. The most obvious examples can be seen in comic superhero stories, but I suspect that if not for the [Smurfette principle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smurfette#The_Smurfette_Principle), this would be more true across the board. However when there are male and female protagonists, there is often a romantic overtone if not explicit storyline in canon. This is fortunately becoming less common as more stories now star women. Workplace stories in particular are more likely to keep the characters as professional partners only. But stories can always take this direction, even if it wasn't originally planned. 

For example, another controversial enemies to lovers story was Buffy/Spike, which carried a good bit of the same electricity as seen between Rey and Kylo and also some of the same issues. When it comes to objections to the two relationships though, it's worth pointing out that the situations are quite different. Spike openly pursued a sexual and romantic relationship with Buffy. He also did so both before and after she went through a traumatic event. He also is not human nor did he have a soul, which in the Buffyverse, was significant in terms of redemption and the possibility of goodness. (The actual effect of the soul was muddled considerably as time went on, particularly by the expansion of the demonverse as seen in Angel the Series.)

As mentioned above, it's not clear that Rey was ever romantically or sexually interested in Kylo or Ben. And while it seems more likely that Kylo was, it's never stated outright by him either. Once Kylo discovers both Rey's power and, later, their connection through the Force, I suspect he would have made the offer of power sharing regardless of whether Rey was a man or woman. His first offer to Rey, in fact, is to train her. This is the same offer made to him from Snoke and is traditional for both the Jedi and Sith. In the case of the Sith, it is also considered a wise move for security purposes, in keeping one's potential enemies close.

I would argue that most of the tension in the Kylo/Rey relationship comes from the audience reading into it what is typical when you have M/F characters set up as antagonists or as movie leads, _especially_ when you have a typical romance/fanfic trope attached to it. So ultimately what interests me more about their relationship is how it mimics romance storylines, in that the heroine may, for the first time, feel empowered through a connection to a man, even if the relationship is at first antagonistic.

**A Woman Takes the Lead**

For example, there is no suggestion anything happened in Poe's interrogation other than that Kylo successfully gained information. Had Kylo attempted to interrogate Finn instead of Rey, might the results have been different from Poe and more similar to Rey? We don't know -- but the first significant clue we have that Finn is force sensitive occurs when he is able to hold Kylo off with a light saber. While the fight wasn't very long, he has never used one before (or probably even seen one up close) whereas Kylo is a very skilled fighter with one. But it's not impossible to imagine that an encounter such as Kylo's interrogation could open a gate for a minor Force user and make them aware of how much more they could do. After all Rey uses this new knowledge quite quickly, and we can be fairly sure she hadn't been able to do so before or her life on Jakku should have been quite different. So I feel fairly confident in saying that the interrogation encounter with Kylo empowered rather than disempowered her.

As an aside, this is also very different from the Buffy/Spike storyline. Buffy is the Chosen One, and at work as a slayer well before they meet. Spike is direct about his attraction, and she succumbs to him during a difficult period in her life. The attempted rape in S6 also happens when she has been injured and is thus unable to easily defeat him as she normally would. By comparison in the SW trilogy, Rey is the ingénue and Kylo is the one attempting to follow in the Chosen One's footsteps. He is already a strong Force user. There is no overt romantic activity, and at no point is Rey weaker than Kylo, although there are scenes in the story in which she is at a temporary disadvantage.

So what brought to my mind the Buffy/Spike parallel was not the enemies to lovers storyline so much as what Spike and Kylo seem to have in common -- they are attracted to a woman's power and abilities. Even before Spike meets Buffy he is attracted to Slayers. He finds them a challenge and a turn-on. In studying his opponent in Buffy S2, he is impressed by her skill and is open about this. Even later, when his interest becomes clearly "romantic", he is no less admiring and easily follows her lead. This is clearest in S7 when he has recovered his soul, but it happens earlier as well. And I have always felt that it was this simple factor that made the Buffy/Spike ship so widespread and intense. Such a storyline is very unusual in romances or, given the shortage of female leads, in stories generally, particularly of the action/adventure or superhero variety.

Kylo is shocked at first by Rey's power, and he is also confused later by why the two seem connected. But it is easy to read his focus on her as not just needing to hunt her down or develop her as an ally. He is intrigued and attracted by the fact that she is a match for him. Like Spike, he "regains his soul" by turning away from the dark side, and he then goes to help Rey. Had he lived longer it's not difficult to imagine that he would be following her rather than the reverse. And in the end, he sacrifices his life for hers in a cavern, eliminating the need to determine whether or not either of them actually loved the other or what redemption meant over the long haul.


End file.
